AAA is now advertising Abyss for tomorrow’s SLP taping. (Promo here – AAA apparently has dignity!) He’s replacing Scott Steiner, who’s quietly being dropped because he’s having issues with TNA at the moment. Abyss worked TripleMania last year, in a match no one’s still quite sure why he was in (but it really wasn’t his fault.)

Mini Psicosis says he studied Octagoncito matches to find ways to beat him (!), Octagoncito will have to prove he should earn the title, and the Vipers are a three man unit, so he considers them all champions.

Ultimo Gladiador would like a match with Mick Foley at TripleMania. Probably not happening. Never hurts to ask.

CMLL also previews the Forjando un Idolo semifinals, noting Polvora vs Delta is actually a rematch of last year’s Gran Alternativa final. First time they, and Angel de Oro and Fuego, have met in a singles match.

Took a couple days, but there’s push back from the WON story about the end of the Fantasma push being picked up by SuperLuchas. Nothing official yet, but if you like people talking about disliking what other people are talking about:

GoldVillano (which I’m always kind of questionably about) says the end of the Mephisto/Fantasma feud had little to do with Fantasma. His story is the feud came about off a legit argument – Mephisto accused Hijo del Fantasma of only getting a push because of his father, Fantasma responded by choking him. CMLL thought this was a grand idea to go with for a feud, but the plan (with some assistance from Fantasma Sr.) was for Mephisto to drop his mask, Mephisto refused, and CMLL gave up on it for now.

Cesar says we should not trust any Mexican information the WON publishes, because the Mexico section’s sources are only Konnan and Ernesto Ocampo and they’re both hating on CMLL. For what it’s worth: I know for a fact Dave Meltzer communicates with people besides those two people (if he even talks to those two people) (also: not me) and I’d guess Konnan isn’t actively feeding news on CMLL because it doesn’t seem like he pays any attention to them; the only news he’d have is gossip passed between wrestlers, but I’m sure he could care less about the day to day of CMLL. Not sure the Ocampo idea makes much more sense. Anyway, Cesar makes the case that you can not accuse CMLL of specifically dropping the Fantasma/Mephisto storyline because they’ve dropped pretty much every storyline they’ve started this year, and sarcastically blames the WWE for all of them. Not a good sign for a promotion when your fans are using gross incompetence as a defense!

I think we can prove there’s a specific issue in Fantasma’s case. Cesar is absolutely right, other guys absolutely did have their feuds dropped, but many of those guys got new feuds. Misterioso, Polvora and Dragon Rojo all had their feuds with Sangre Azteca toned down, but they’ve all individually been promoted in other ways (trios title shot, Forjando un Idolo, usual ridiculous amount of title matches.) Generacion Dorada vs Hijos de Averno hasn’t been followed up by a group, but that’s expected when Dorada’s not been in Mexico much and won’t be for a while; Sombra’s got other big matches, Avenro’s feuded with La Mascara, and Mephisto has helped out there. Fantasma hasn’t done anything since dropping that lightning match to Olimpico – a proud member of the group that never wins any important matches! You did not need the WON story to know something happened with Fantasma. There’s been no story about Bam Bam, and yet it’s pretty clear Something Happened with him in February, when he suddenly dropped the minis title and then dropped off the face off the Earth for weeks. The WON story was a good explanation, and one I’m inclined to believe, but just dismissing the explanation for the issue doesn’t mean the issue isn’t still there.

Links

Jay Lethal, CMLL veteran, will be appearing on the next Lucha Libre USA taping.

Lineup here. El Hijo del Santo had that WWA title the last we saw. Not sure if that’ s a tournament for the title or a title shot (but I’m guessing the new title.) That’s the new Hijo de Rey, the former Tijuana Horus.

12 Comments

There’s so much to say I don’t even know where to begin but I want to ask one question since I know Cesar/Goldvillano read this:

Why would Ernesto O’Campo invent stories about CMLL that aren’t true and put them in his nationally distributed magazine? Wouldn’t that just make him and his magazine look bad for reporting false information?

I could understand if you were accusing Ernesto of creating a name like Fake_Mistico and posting rumors on message boards to make people angry. But it serves no purpose to do it in his own magazine unless his revenge against CMLL is to ruin his own reputation.

BTW, Cesar had no problem believing stuff from the Observer I shared with him a while back. When he agrees with what is being said the WON is a great source. When he disagrees with an anti-CMLL rumor the WON is pure BS. That’s not how it works. Pick a side.

@thecubsfan: How much of a decline has AAA seen? CMLL seems to be about the same.

Why “startlingly”? Is there something about AAA that makes you think they should be averaging more than a 3.3? We always gripe about the long commercials breaks, changing timeslot and/or duration and other aspects of the show. Should anyone be surprised that they are down?

Even AAA realizes that they have absolutely nothing going on which is why they panicked and put together this AAA vs. TNA or Mexico vs. USA angle out of nowhere. AAA has nothing. Should their ratings be higher?

Thus far, AAA’s only complaint about the ratings has been that last weeks’ number was off by a mere .1(they did a 3.7 not 3.6) and that was due to a round off issue, which happens.

I think he said “startling” b/c last year we couldn’t go one week without monumental changes in the ratings pattern and suddenly this year everything seems to make sense to the point you can almost predict the ratings ahead of time.

What’s fishy about it? They are a company in decline. No different than WCW, Ultimate Fighter, or any other program that has ups and downs, or just down.

Why should AAA get higher ratings? Haven’t you noticed a decline in the product?

AAA’s only response to the ratings is that last weeks’ number was a 3.7 not 3.6. I was off by just .1 and that’s just one week and only b/c of a rounding issue. As a result, AAA got mad and sent Meltzer more detaliled ratings including local markets.

@thecubsfan: AAA gave WON last weeks’ numbers including the locals. They are in this weeks issue. The only difference between mine and theirs was the 3.7 vs. 3.6 and that’s a round off error. I assume they will continue to provide ratings to have control over the message at this point.

Are you surprised that they are averaging in the 3’s while last year they had more 4’s and 5’s? Last year they have La Park vs. Parka Jr., while this year they have nothing. WWE RAW has been in the 6’s lately. They were in the 9’s and 10’s before.

Yes, there was more variance some weeks last year. I remember that one week when AAA had something like a 7.0 when they were usually in the 4’s and 5’s. Didn’t the World Cup mess up ratings for both groups some weeks last year?

If Televisa continues to fuck AAA around, and the AAA product continues to be stale in storyline(Konnan angle is stale, Bizarros failed, excessive run-ins and chairs and tables), they’ll attract a smaller but steady audience.

@LLL: When I said “fishy” I meant the numbers are fishy b/c they in no way resemble what you were posting last year. I’m not refering to what the actual numbers are at all, I’m just refering to the non-existent pattern from last year which always came under fire and this year’s clear pattern which nobody would have seen coming after last year’s numbers.

As for the numbers themselves I could care less. I’ve never put any stock in these numbers and find them completely useless on every level.